TurtleTree, a startup that does its research and development out of the Lab@AgStart in Woodland, has announced a second partnership to use its product in new food offerings.
TurtleTree announced last week that it's partnered with Strive Nutrition Corp., a Wichita, Kansas-based company that makes plant-based and lab-produced milk beverages. Under the partnership, Strive will use TurtleTree’s lab-grown lactoferrin, LF+, in a number of upcoming products, including an immunity support beverage and a protein powder.
Strive is the second company TurtleTree has publicly announced it has partnered with. In May, it said that Madison, Wisconsin-based Cadence Cold Brew would use LF+ in a caffeine shot beverage aimed at endurance athletes. TurtleTree co-founder and CEO Fengru Lin said the shot should be available for sale to the public in about a month. The Strive products should be available before the end of the year.
“It’s an exciting time for us,” Lin told the Business Journal. “We’re starting to commercialize.”
TurtleTree, which has its corporate headquarters in Singapore, moved into the Lab@AgStart in 2021. The company set out to produce food products that replicate the nutrients in milk, without using animals. Its first product, LF+, is powdered lactoferrin — a multifunctional protein found in mammalian milk that’s thought to play a key role in protecting both newborn calves and human infants from infection.
“There’s no other product like lactoferrin,” Lin said. “It has a lot of benefits packed into one molecule.”
But currently, Lin said, most of the lactoferrin produced is channeled into infant nutrition, and can cost upward of $1,000 per kilogram. That’s because, using traditional methods, it takes 100,000 liters of milk to make 1 kilogram of lactoferrin. However, TurtleTree uses precision fermentation, using yeast to produce the target protein, to make a lactoferrin without using any milk. Its LF+ powder is certified as vegan by Vegan Action.
In November of 2021, TurtleTree raised $30 million from investors led by Luxembourg-based Verso Capital. Lin said TurtleTree is not yet generating revenue.
At one time, the company planned to open a 24,000-square-foot manufacturing and R&D facility in West Sacramento. Lin said they decided not to move ahead with that plan.
“We have been pretty successful with working with contract manufacturing,” Lin said.
Lin said the company is on the lookout for more food and beverage companies that are interested in using LF+ in their products. So far, she said, the company has been partnering with other small startups that can release new products in a matter of months, instead of large food brands, which can take years to research and develop new products.
“If they're able to move fast we'll try to support them in their growth,” Lin said.
